


theogony (or, an excursus on the theories behind the birth of Eros)

by jarofclay



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26796436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jarofclay/pseuds/jarofclay
Summary: Of all the mythical tales Seijuurou has read in his life, his least favorite used to be the ones about passion.-A story about Akashi Seijuurou being in a constant state of low-key arousal around Kuroko Tetsuya, a fact that had to be inevitably addressed at some point in time. But since it is Akashi Seijuurou, this happens on higher philosophical grounds.
Relationships: Akashi Seijuurou/Kuroko Tetsuya
Comments: 27
Kudos: 109





	theogony (or, an excursus on the theories behind the birth of Eros)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Matloc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Matloc/gifts).



> So here I am, finishing ancient wips dedicated to Q (HAPPY BDAY!!) and trying to obtain more akkr art from Tami...  
> SIGHS can u believe this is a 2016 wip... funny thing is i wrote 95% of it in 2016 then got stuck with the editing, only to realize in 2020 that the editing this needed was to cut lots of shit out. truly felt liberating. but regardless, i have lost count of how much brain work i have wasted on this fic, I’m never gonna aim high again, and my appreciation for Q has gone up bc idk how she does that poetic shit for every fic like ((: send me to hell  
> also its very weird bc I have plotted and half-written an incredible amount of pining!akashi fics so it feels like this fic is nothing new AT ALL from me. but then I realize this is actually the first pining!akashi fic I finish and post lol.   
> does this fandom still exist? i hope the dead enjoy
> 
>  **Warnings:** akashi wearing greek mythology goggles (pls forgive inaccuracies, I did wing the idea on a random midnight out of nowhere); syncretism of greek&jpns cultures bc there was no one to stop me; light implications of sex, bc even if akkr is the otp that I least associate with sex and physicality, for one reason or another I always end up writing them like that. why

**{ on eros }**

Of all the mythical tales Seijuurou has read in his life, his least favorite used to be the ones about passion. The invincible, visceral kind, ruin of families and kingdoms alike, so terrible that it could only be explained by the intervention of meddling gods. Truthfully, he used to feel no sympathy towards the tortured protagonists of those stories, towards the weakness that led them to abide to a divine caprice. Cocked darts, magical potions and the unfathomable pull of otherworldly beauty belonged to a realm of concepts he could not relate to. Words on a page, a common trope; literary knowledge, and nothing more.

Because Seijuurou deems himself a creature of almost spontaneous discipline—of easily measured actions and foreseen consequences—there has never been space for deities on his path, whether in fiction or reality. The urge to blame something greater for his own missteps never rose, because nothing escaped his self-control. Since he’s had memories, Seijuurou has only known this: he’s built himself to be his own god.

As it always goes when it comes to men and gods, only in hindsight Seijuurou realizes he should have known better.

To be fair, the blame doesn’t entirely fall on him—but isn’t that _exactly_ how all those tragic tales start? Yet it must be telling of a problem existing out of Seijuurou, the fact that most of his miscalculations revolve around Tetsuya. It is counterproductive, Seijuurou has found, to act on anything other than assumptions when it comes to Tetsuya. Like a black hole, he is a point of singularity, endearing despite its threat, and Seijuurou has understood too late how gravely he underestimated the nature of gods, and the humans who are cloaked with them—the powerful clutch Tetsuya holds him in, to be able to instill such thoughts. Perhaps if Tetsuya didn’t exist, all this would have remained a foreign word on a page.

But here Seijuurou stands, victim of a cruel joke, of a loss of beloved reason, or of a godly anger he has caused in a previous existence, and finds himself wondering.

After all, it cannot be of human nature, the rousing force driving his body closer to Tetsuya, as if his hands are forged from metal and Tetsuya is a magnet; nor can be the fire that warms his insides in Tetsuya’s presence and the way every missed touch translates into a parched throat.

A stranger inhabits his body and his mind, always straining to control his every action and imposing on his impulses. Seijuurou has fought it off plenty times, but he can never kill it completely. How to kill a god that travels on Tetsuya's shoulder, under Tetsuya's skin, and plays in impervious ways with Seijuurou's heartbeat? Source of infinite troubles, it lies in timeless wait for Seijuurou's demise.

So Seijuurou wonders, wonders where it all began, and seeks the origin of this crazed spinning, the knowledge that might help him win this strenuous fight and regain control.

And the answer must lie in Tetsuya, for on his body and soul is traced a theogony in dactylic hexameters that has Seijuurou as its amanuensis.

**{ chaos, gaia and tartarus }**

Perhaps Hesiod wrote the truth, and everything started the very first time Seijuurou laid his sight upon a new creature, a still nameless legend, while the gaping chaos was yawing closed and the earth still rumbled like thunders with the impetuous birth of myths. At the time Seijuurou might have lacked a higher awareness of the intricacies of their crossing paths, slowly being paved into the crust of earth with each drag of their young feet; but that doesn't deny how palpable it was, the reality of something fateful clicking into place so that the process of creation could continue; of planets aligning into a vast line, leading to the inevitable fall.

“When you're ready, come to me,” Seijuurou said with something between dispassion and curiosity, in a time so far that it replays in his mind with the undertones of a washed-out film. Yet, he vividly remembers the boy’s careful hope when he unknowingly walked into the titans’ prison.

But even if Seijuurou couldn't deny his piqued fascination for that flickering presence and that resilience softly nurtured by friendship, at least his heart did not beat in time with theirs, nor was there a twitch in Seijuurou's limbs directing them against his will. The odd feeling of a lingering link and, perhaps, nothing more.

**{ ares and aphrodite }**

So maybe not, it might have been born later, when all Seijuurou could think of was winning wars and building empires, but had to stand defeated instead. In front of Tetsuya, smiling and glistening with sweat, and tears in his eyes matching Seijuurou's. He certainly felt something coil deep within him then, awakening from a long lethargy, rousing and settling for an uncertain stay. As Tetsuya’s hands held his tentative ones, his first impulse was to seek more. More of what, Seijuurou couldn’t tell, but they parted with a promise that made him feel a little lighter as he went home. He deemed it a logical and inevitable necessity when the next morning he woke up with no soreness and too much energy, and resisted only half an hour of jogging on the treadmill before calling. Maybe that is what it was: the unfamiliarity of loss made him wish for more of Tetsuya’s familiar presence, of playing against him.

"We haven’t talked in a long while," Seijuurou told a surprised Tetsuya, pausing the treadmill. He looked at the numbers on the screen as if they could predict Tetsuya's next words, but his heart rate could only predict his own. “We should amend that.”

"It's 7:30am," is what Tetsuya's soft voice answered, with a familiar, bleary resentment that made Seijuurou even out his breath. It's the things that had changed that pushed him to do this, but the things that stayed the same that had given him the determination to press the call button.

"It is," Seijuurou confirmed. "Is 3pm alright for you?”

The hanging silence made Seijuurou wonder what was going on in Tetsuya's head. If he had fallen back asleep with his phone in hand. He heard rustling, and then, "Yes."

This time his voice felt even closer, like he had curled into a ball and was cradling the phone to his mouth. "Please let me sleep now," Tetsuya said, even though he sounded a lot more awake.

Seijuurou wanted to know which kind of expression was gracing Tetsuya’s features when he agreed. Just as his thumb was about to end the call, his name coming from the speaker brought the phone back to his ear.

"Yes?"

A pause, and some more rustling. "Sorry, it’s nothing," Tetsuya said at last. It took some more before the final, "We can talk later after all."

Seijuurou did not insist, and with an hour and a place in mind, he fell back into his rhythm on the treadmill.

It must have not been then either, because Seijuurou could easily wait hours, as busy as he was with mending scars and reconciliation. There was a lot to do, and the slow process of rebirth, that started on a treadmill, continued with a trip back to Kyoto to build a new team, fierce and undefeatable. So even if Seijuurou was starting to discern between Tetsuya and the world – between the feeling of Tetsuya and the feeling anything else gave him – new wars had to be won and that, he decided, was what truly mattered.

**{ uranus and aphrodite }**

Others said it was born from the beauty of love and the firmament laying upon it like a vast blanket, and Seijuurou can't deny the color of Tetsuya's eyes was more entrancing than ever when it shone in his direction as he joined the team’s circle at the end of the match, sweat coating his skin and adrenaline trembling in his arms as he laid them around broad familiar backs. Tetsuya stood in the circle, looking as tiny as ever and yet larger than life, glancing at Seijuurou now and then with a broad smile out-shadowing the tiredness of his muscles. So typical of him to throw threads for Seijuurou to latch onto: _'Akashi-kun is Akashi-kun_ ' became a soft lull in the quiet of his mind as he noticed the slow metamorphosis that had somehow taken place under his usually attentive eyes.

If anything about Tetsuya had ever been unappealing—if anything had appeared dull and unremarkable at first glance, Seijuurou couldn’t remember. Tetsuya’s face was a tapestry enriched with the finest details, narrating a story through the shape of wide blue eyes and warm cheeks. Everything about him was so _'Tetsuya'_ , and Seijuurou hadn’t known one’s name could ever become an adjective to describe the pull in his chest whenever those eyes fell on him.

As he walked Tokyo's colorful streets, refreshed and with satisfaction thrumming in his veins, making him pliant and unguarded to his own wishes, Seijuurou admired the decorations for _Tanabata_ wave in the breeze like loose threads of an unfinished tapestry. Walking side by side, he glanced at Tetsuya as they all stopped to a booth to fill the branches with their own _tanzaku_.

"What will you write?" Seijuurou asked Tetsuya, whose pen hovered over the sheet of blue paper thoughtfully.

"I don't know," Tetsuya admitted, looking owlishly at his paper strip, "It's hard to find something to wish for when you already feel very satisfied. A new pair of shoes?"

"A good wish," Daiki said.

In that moment, Seijuurou was also at a loss, suddenly able to only think up of a name; which was an adjective, and a wish, and a loud, uncertain drum in his ears.

"Akashicchi, don't write 'victory' as usual! Be more creative," Ryouta jumped in, half joking and half chastising, and Seijuurou conceded, "We’ll see."

"I love Tanabata so much, it's my favorite festival," Satsuki said happily, reading through the hundreds of hanging _tanzaku_ with shine in her eyes. "It's so romantic!"

"Isn't it actually pretty sad, though," Ryouta mused, "Being forced to see each other only once a year... That isn't really the best outcome for a love story."

Thoughtfully, Satsuki hummed. "Well, it depends on how good the one day they spent together was. Maybe it was worth all the waiting in the world."

"They were irresponsible, though. To lose control over their own lives and duties so deeply that separation was necessary," Shintarou said.

Ryouta snorted. "Cut the gods some slack."

One more tale of loss of control, one more tale of shamefully falling prey to something too great to control, but for the first time Seijuurou's heart throbbed in recognition.

In his opinion it was neither romantic nor sad, but bittersweet, like a flightless human looking up at the birds in the sky, who knows with certainty they would spend their days flying in the blue if only they could.

“I guess it is bittersweet,” Tetsuya echoed while writing on his paper strip. “I don’t mind bittersweet stories.”

Beside him, Tetsuya looked over with a smile, and Seijuurou finally saw the silver lining in living far away, if one week together was all it took to rouse in him the need to trace the curve of that smile with his finger, to claim the attention of those eyes again. Rest for his heart is what Seijuurou thought he needed, and that's why it can't have been then either, because with too much ease he turned his head away and pulled the reins on the suggestions of a sudden impulse. He cast one wish away and wrote another on thin rice paper and when he looked at Tetsuya's, hanging from the branch, he saw a similar one and only smiled, thinking of his future days back in Kyoto without him and a river of starlight to look at.

**{ nyx and erebus }**

The orphic mysteries tell of what bloomed in the vast darkness of the black-winged night; of the dusk that fell on Tetsuya's contours like a stage curtain as they waded through the crowds and leant over the edge of the bridge, to look at the river of paper lanterns floating on the water surface like naiads.

They wandered together with their friends in the busy street, having silly discussions and indulging in food stands as they went, until they accidentally fell behind, an entranced Tetsuya paying too much attention to gold fish swimming lazily in a barrel and Seijuurou paying too much attention to Tetsuya.

"Somehow I didn't expect Midorima-kun to say he prefers older women," Tetsuya brought up from an earlier topic as they plunged again into the crowd in search of the others.

"At least it's a more respectable preference than Aomine's," Seijuurou replied, unimpressed. He walked forward in the golden air of a hundred paper lights, with Tetsuya's step inaudible in his wake, like a ghost tied to him only by a flimsy promise.

"It's nice to walk behind you," Tetsuya said when Seijuurou glanced over his shoulder, questioning. "People part so easily to let you pass."

"Are you using me as an ice breaker?"

"Everyone has their own best qualities," Tetsuya said in that irreverent way of his, so Seijuurou kept moving.

That was one of the cruel things Tetsuya forced him through. Always making him walk ahead, with no guarantee that he would follow, unsure whether the feeling of eyes boring into his back was wishful or real. Seijuurou had always fancied, if not demanded, companions so loyal that he wouldn’t have to check behind to know he would always find them there. He had expected that from Tetsuya long ago, but Tetsuya had disappeared. Now here he was again, against all odds, but what the future held even Seijuurou could only cautiously predict.

"So, what kind of person does Akashi-kun like instead?" Tetsuya asked when their feet touched the grass of a shadowed flowerbed, away from the orange lights of the festival lanterns.

Seijuurou chuckled, hiding any ruefulness by glancing up at the sky. "Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine."

Tetsuya's voice hovered barely over the crowd's as he said, "I think I like kind people."

"That's not a surprise," Seijuurou commented; and not hearing more of it, "That's it?"

"I don't really have a type." Seijuurou rolled his eyes, thinking differently. "What about you? I can hardly imagine you fancying someone."

"What are you implying with that," Seijuurou replied, hoping the mock offense could conceal his heartbeat growing louder. He weighed the words on his tongue before spilling them. "I suppose I'd like someone whom I can also respect. Somebody who is stubborn and always tries to follow their heart against all reason, who's also kind and... makes me want to be a better person."

The silence following was as long as Seijuurou feared, and Tetsuya's hum was slow to float to his ears like a calming lullaby.

"That was very detailed. You surely set a high bar," Tetsuya said foolishly, and it would sound chiding if Seijuurou couldn't hear the small smile in his words.

"Perhaps," Seijuurou said, his voice natural enough even as it clogged his throat. Patience was one of Seijuurou's virtues, as was the strength to not turn back for all the past months, lest risk of losing something important. But everyone has a limit, and Seijuurou’s very core thrummed by now, with the need to ground Tetsuya to where he stood – close to him, with him, always. So he added, pausing in his steps and turning around towards Tetsuya's ephemeral presence, "but you do manage to climb past it easily enough, don’t you?"

"…That is—"

"You make it quite hard for me not to like you."

If there was any doubt about his words, Seijuurou sealed them with a single gaze. One puzzle piece too many had Tetsuya fall silent, eyes etched with stupor, and in a few moments, the spell was broken, the challenge was lost. The corners of Tetsuya's mouth twitched with the tension, and his body barely refrained to take one step away from him. Not from disgust, but with a need to find more space to manoeuver around the gruesome task of finding the least hurtful words to crush him.

Upset, Tetsuya stammered in his actions with a soft 'ah', and a rare tint high on his cheeks. "I," he tried a few times. Why was he at such a loss, Seijuurou wondered, even though it didn’t really matter. He did not think he’s been so subtle. "Akashi-kun, I care about you deeply, and even though—"

"It’s alright," Seijuurou lied, smiling faintly. "I should apologize. This wasn't the most favorable moment."

"No, I am—"

They were both offered an easy escape when their friends came crashing onto the scene—loud and brash, and blind to the mood. But the two of them both stood looking at each other on the shadowed flowerbed, trapped in a different dimension. Tetsuya, kind Tetsuya, even while being whisked away by everyone, was still gripping hesitantly onto Seijuurou's gaze, trying to extrapolate the right thing to say from his very eyes. But Seijuurou held the sturdiest mask of acceptance, and almost took a vindictive pleasure in seeing him falter in the face of that.

"Kuroko," he murmured when Tetsuya didn't make to follow Daiki’s pull on his wrist. "I understand. Let’s enjoy the rest of the evening," he said because, just maybe, Tetsuya feared him being whisked away as well, now that he was finally looking back.

Tetsuya nodded slowly, uncharacteristically shyly. "Thank you, Akashi-kun, for everything," he murmured, and bowed slightly. So very him to thank Seijuurou for loving him in a way he did not. So he let himself be whisked away by Daiki’s hands. As the evening went on, Tetsuya's eyes lingered on him now and then, losing their alert when Seijuurou moved around him in easy steps, unaffected enough to convince him that the meaning of his words was a shallow spur of the moment, vanished suddenly in thin air.

So it can't have been then if Seijuurou managed to pretend so well, and look away when Tetsuya was lost in the noise of fireworks exploding in the night sky, colorful sparks erupting and blooming like flowers on the reflective edges of his wind-gear. It must be sometime else if Seijuurou could keep far enough for Tetsuya to leave behind his awkward pauses and uneven fidgeting in later weeks.

(Only one moment he conceded himself, when his house greeted him with silence that night: his fingers stilled on the doorknob of his bedroom, no heavy smiles, eyes closed and forehead pressing against the wood viciously, the bitter taste of losing in his mouth. Then he finally opened the door and let the darkness of the room swallow everything, and it almost was as if nothing had ever been said.)

**{ penia and poros }**

So Seijuurou hypothesizes its birth at another time, when playing a complicated game not of chasing but of attracting. They used to say it was born from the feeling of incompleteness and the expedients to conquer the beloved. He couldn’t have called them wrong when he leant against the gym’s walls, holding a water bottle and watching their teams fight over barbecue meat. They had been brought together by Seijuurou’s plan of a joined training camp, and now only a few carefully calculated inches separated him from Tetsuya.

In the past months, Seijuurou had studied ways to ease the ache, and found that Tetsuya’s attention was a double-edged placebo, if somewhat predictable. He had been counting the smiles directed at him only, savoring the times Tetsuya would follow in his wake or peer discretely at him through a crowd. Even if it wasn’t what he was truly aiming for, he kept conquering more.

Nonetheless, he knew better than to hold any other rule than that of art museums. Anything Tetsuya may have handed him was to be treated carefully, to be appreciated in silence. Troy might have fallen for the trick of a gift, but Seijuurou was not going to, even when the list of victims strove to collect his name as well. 

The afternoon hours found Tetsuya watching the replay of a practice match on his camera. Aida had taken him off the court due to a muscle strain, so Seijuurou scooted over a little, wanting to see more of the flush that Tetsuya was trying to bring down, not dissimilar to the shade Seijuurou imagined him in at night, sometimes.

"Tell me what you see," Seijuurou said.

"I see Akashi-kun trying to discover if he has to hide his game secrets better," Tetsuya said defiantly.

"Knowing my patterns, if there's any, won’t be enough to defeat us.”

"Everyone can be predictable, if you look hard enough. Even Akashi-kun," Tetsuya glared subtly at the tiny camera screen.

“All of our practice matches up to now certainly prove my point,” Seijuurou said, riveting in the thrill of the challenge.

Tetsuya closed the camera and made to roll away on the floor.

"Where are you going," Seijuurou demanded.

"I can't accept any more of your wins," Tetsuya said almost sourly, giving himself more spin on the floor. "I need to try something with Kagami-kun."

Seijuurou grabbed him by the ankle, reminding him of his coach’s orders. So Tetsuya observed his team, eager to join his friends again as if Seijuurou's presence wasn't enough, but gradually giving in to tiredness as Seijuurou held his leg and massaged his knuckles against the sore muscle.

"You're good at this as well," Tetsuya said, then added in a taunting whisper, "Too predictable."

"Not a pattern I keep secret, though,” Seijuurou teased.

"True," Tetsuya agreed resignedly, before continuing, "Akashi-kun can be very... kind."

It was cruel of Tetsuya to tease him back with echoes of their past, to play with Seijuurou's heart like it was a toy for his own enjoyment. But Seijuurou knew he was being harsh and unfair in thinking that, Tetsuya never wanted to hurt him on purpose. So to that Seijuurou could only tremble, like an old race horse used to too many victories. His hands gripped Tetsuya's leg a bit tighter, begging to not let go; but they did, and Seijuurou hated every ounce of the effort it took.

"Do your teammates help you with cramps that rarely?"

"I wasn't talking about that," Tetsuya said. "You were asking for secret patterns that I can see."

Seijuurou laid Tetsuya's foot down delicately, now truly wondering how Tetsuya saw him. If still unmarred by the ugliness he felt, the undying want, or the way Seijuurou sometimes saw himself: thick-skinned and walking barefoot not to be heard approach, slithering in the shadows to coil around the prey unseen; or desperate, like a mute tramp begging with their eyes, like a puppet striving for control of its own limbs.

"It's convenient for me that you'd believe that," Seijuurou said eerily.

"That's not a normal answer, Akashi-kun. Please don't talk like a villain."

Seijuurou would have argued he was not the villain in this story. After all, who was the real villain in a tale of divine obsessions and unrequited love? Was it his fingers, begging to linger further on the soft, warm skin, or was it Tetsuya's undivided attention suddenly falling on him, so yearned and yet so heavy? Seijuurou felt like an unfortunate victim at best; on worse days, a diseased man who had run late for the cure to a poison he himself had let fester.

But again, it couldn’t have been then either because, despite Seijuurou's guess that this wait was a slow countdown bound to end with a painful crack—it did go on. Truthful to his strength, the gods were kept at bay, and the stillicide continued.

**{ iris and zephyrus }**

Therefore, Seijuurou thinks it may have been born in recent times, on the day a gentle spring rain caught the two of them unprepared, urging them to take refuge under the roof of a bus stop. The pitter-patter played an earthly tune on the asphalt, and the empty street was carpeted with cherry petals all the way to the slope that hid a farther horizon.

The blossomed crowns of the trees whispered in the wind, foretellers of new starts—their graduation, Seijuurou's future university in Kyoto, and Tetsuya, requesting his company many times in the past weeks. Contrary to popular impression, understanding Tetsuya came natural not even to Seijuurou: just like any other, it was a skill he had honed with time and practice, and even then it was often proven irremediably imperfect. After six years, many of Tetsuya's actions still were of uncertain interpretation, so Seijuurou knew he was teetering on overconfidence when he secretly named them 'dates' in his head, and kept meticulous count.

Nonetheless, Seijuurou’s determination was as sturdy as diamonds in most matters. Even with the past hanging over his head like Damocles’ sword—the memory of impulsive, wishful actions that didn’t belong to him and yet they did—Seijuurou was driven forward, towards important discoveries. Like the fact that Tetsuya hadn't felt the need to pull away when Seijuurou had boldly gripped his hand to guide them away from the rain. Thus, the seventh date now, and working to have Tetsuya start counting as well.

Tetsuya’s striped shirt hung heavier in places on his humid skin and the tip of his foot teased a slither of rainbow washing the sidewalk. Entranced by the sight, he didn't know that another trembled in the hollow of his collarbone. His left hand gripped the bench, not looking as scorched as Seijuurou’s right one felt from the fading contact.

That's how Seijuurou wished time could stop: at that single frame, with the sound of droplets falling on the plastic roof, the smell of wet grass invading his senses and Tetsuya’s body heat prickling the bare skin of his arm.

Tetsuya’s gaze fell on him, faintly surprised at hearing aloud what Seijuurou knew must have been his same thoughts.

“Would you like to wait for a bus forever?” Tetsuya replied light-heartedly, pretending to miss the point.

“Just for a little while,” Seijuurou corrected, because waiting for a bus was vaguely similar to waiting for Tetsuya, and Seijuurou’s momentum wouldn’t allow an eternal stagnation. “How surprising though. I assumed you would agree with me.”

Ever the perceptive one, Tetsuya glanced at him. “You're always assuming things,” he said defensively, well seeing through Seijuurou’s jab.

"I can't help it when you've gotten worse at hiding your thoughts. Although, in your defense, I believe today you aren't even trying."

Tetsuya carried a vague air of offense. "…I believe you have gotten too good at guessing.”

Not good enough. One answer had been evading Seijuurou constantly, the elements of the equation never adding up to the type of foolproof result Seijuurou wished for anything he worked on. It could have been that Seijuurou troubled Tetsuya’s mind the same way he troubled Seijuurou’s, as much as it could have been that Tetsuya's attention was just a desperate attempt at squeezing the satchel of good times to the last drop before they would all scatter once again, going their separate ways in a world without basketball competitions guiding them back to the start. Hypotheses, hypotheses, and nothing left to do but wait. Fortunately, Seijuurou liked to play an active part, so as to be able to call this situation a matter of patience instead of abidance.

“Akashi-kun is the kind of person who makes me think it can’t be too hard to find a needle in a haystack.”

"If it’s a needle I’m very fond of, then by all means.”

A lull, as Tetsuya looked ahead at the pink-stained road, and Seijuurou calculated the possible outcomes of his words, if it was wise to stay silent or say more. Tetsuya’s reputation for bluntness had always been contradictory. Seijuurou thought that sometimes Tetsuya wished his words to be pulled out of him when he couldn’t voice them on his own. It worked well for Seijuurou, since he had a penchant for truths and enjoyed seeing Tetsuya face them.

“You know I’m merely wondering why you look quite troubled about the future."

Tetsuya breathed in then, deeply, the precursory sign of being about to speak his mind. “I’m not troubled. I just… wish I could know for certain that some things aren’t going to change."

It was paradoxical, the way Tetsuya strove to mold realities that anyone else would have thought unchangeable, but shied away from others he didn't realize he had far more power over.

“As expected of you, this is very sentimental," Seijuurou commented when Tetsuya didn't elaborate further.

"Don't make fun of me," Tetsuya retorted, amusingly somber. "Are you above any kind of worry?"

Seijuurou did worry about some things, and that was one of the reasons he wished time to stop for a bit: diamonds could be shattered with the right pressure, and sometimes he needed some reprieve from the fact that Tetsuya was out of his control.

"Of course not. I just meant that I happen to see sturdier bonds where you see far more ephemeral ones." Seijuurou glanced knowingly at Tetsuya, who looked genuinely surprised. "Which is why I, on the contrary, have come to appreciate times of change greatly.”

"And yet you're the one who was demanding time to stop."

"That's because I'm enjoying sitting here, discussing the fact that you always seem to stay the same." Whether it was a compliment or a reproach, Tetsuya made his confusion clear with a delicate squint of his eyes. After all, Seijuurou didn't know either; but he was very partial, and also a little desperate. Years earlier he had been calling it a flaw, later an anchor; now, he considered it mostly a danger for himself. "And because we can allow ourselves a few more seconds of pleasant familiarity before the big leap."

"It is weird that you always know what to say."

And that was such an odd sentence to hear, that Seijuurou could only smile perplexedly.

They used to write Eros was born when the endlessly gowned rainbow was loved by the wind, probably not unlike the way Tetsuya shifted forward and all of Seijuurou's control went into letting the strip of iridescent light kiss Tetsuya's lips instead of doing it himself. It may have then grown when it slipped to the corners of his glimmering eye, while the breeze caressed his hair and carried Seijuurou's name from his tongue, never failing to shed a brighter spectrum of colors on the world.

And it may have stilled in wait when Tetsuya breathed in and asked, “Do you remember the O-Bon festival, two summers ago?”

It felt like time had suddenly lurched backwards, instead of merely stopping. Seijuurou could almost see again the orange lights and the darkness of the night, and wondered if this was a new trial for him, if there was a wrong or right answer, if Tetsuya was just curious or playing games. But that would be unlike Tetsuya: he didn’t play cruel games, not deliberately.

“I do,” Seijuurou conceded, careful.

Looking down at his pale knees thoughtfully—nervously—Tetsuya continued, “What you… told me that time, I couldn’t really wrap my head around it. That _Akashi-kun_ would…”

He paused.

“It’s a bit odd to think that I chased you for so long, wanted all of us to be friends again, and yet you were the one who seemed to know me better than I knew you.”

With some difficulty Seijuurou followed, watching Tetsuya wade through the flow of his own thoughts, almost forgetful of where they sat, patching pieces together for his own perusal rather than Seijuurou’s.

“But I think I do _know_ better now. You, or maybe just myself. So I wanted to ask you something, if you’ll let me.”

Nodding, Seijuurou felt time violently tug him back to the present, to the iridescent rain puddles and the cherry blossom.

“Do you still like me?”

Seijuurou wanted to correct him: there was more to that feeling, but it was better not to saddle him with something heavier than what already lie known on his plate of the scale, not with the other plate still noticeably empty.

“I’m afraid that isn’t going to change for a while,” he answered with a noncommittal smile, as if commenting the weather instead of baring his greatest weakness. When Tetsuya kept staring down at his shoes, Seijuurou finally thought that he might have hoped for too much.

But, "In that case," Tetsuya breathed out, "I will be in your care," and the smile on Seijuurou's lips froze and fell.

Tetsuya sat there, blue eyes peeking at Seijuurou sideways, almost inquisitively, as if waiting for an easy answer to an inconsequential question—as if curiously waiting to discover what Seijuurou’s reaction might be. So very like Tetsuya to tip the world upside down with a polite murmur.

Seijuurou had vague recollections of a time of dispassion, of lapidary words and emotions felt in whispers. But that time felt long gone, flooded like a sybaritic city, destroyed by its disregard for the gods, ruins forever drowned in an endless river.

Faced with the strength of a river, Seijuurou couldn't resist the pull of the strings that raised his hand to cradle Tetsuya's cheek, and then the back of his neck. He barely noticed himself drawing closer as he called Tetsuya’s name. But when Tetsuya finally turned to him fully, he was in the perfect position to surge forward and bring their mouths together. He could not stop drinking in the poisonous softness of it, the sweetness of the tiny sound Tetsuya made, the exhale against Seijuurou’s mouth. And it was the way Tetsuya chased his lips, when Seijuurou pulled away for a moment, that ultimately overwhelmed him. The sudden, delicate push of Tetsuya's hand against his chest did little to distract him.

“The bus,” Tetsuya breathed, a rosy tint warming his cheeks. Unwilling to let go, Seijuurou kissed him again, with greater effort. Tetsuya always had to keep something else in the forefront of his mind, while Seijuurou wasn't sure he could ever stop, now that the river had flown out. Their surroundings were not as worthy of attention as the breathlessness this leap had left him with.

“We should—” Tetsuya dared try again in-between, unconvinced, but Seijuurou rest his own hand on his, entwined their fingers on Seijuurou’s chest and pressed them further into the fabric of his shirt, right over his madly beating heart. His loss of control was all he could offer as objection in that moment, in the hopes Tetsuya would take pleasure from the power he was exercising over him. But instead Tetsuya exhaled shakily as if not knowing what to do with it except take what Seijuurou offered, and give what was wanted in return—let Seijuurou wrap his arms around him as the bus came and went, leaving them at the stop, the last raindrops rippling the sun's reflection in the puddles.

**{ }**

But now, as Seijuurou catches Tetsuya's gasps in his mouth and maps the curves of Tetsuya's back with the reverence due to a marble statue, he realizes that perhaps Hesiod and Orpheus were wrong and that he should be looking at the issue from a different perspective, a more encompassing one.

“Stop teasing,” Tetsuya complains and holds his face with both hands when Seijuurou leans away from a kiss, just for the desire to hear Tetsuya say that, see Tetsuya chase him like he’s the greedy one, like there’s a balance in their starvation—Seijuurou doubts there is, but all the more reason to bask in the illusion, in the dimly-lit privacy of his bedroom.

As his fingertips grip Tetsuya's thighs, his gaze holding a silent plea to grasp harder, Seijuurou imagines Eros as something beyond primeval gods, an energy moving in a timeless space, shaping and cradling all moments into a single one.

Past and present don’t seem as relevant in his quest for answers, when every kiss he leaves on Tetsuya's skin is a kiss to all the words they ever said, and every touch traces the cracks that life dug and Seijuurou witnessed first-hand. The memory of the rainbow on Tetsuya's collarbone feels as vivid as that of Tetsuya's scarce presence in his new team jersey. He remembers his desire to sit closer under a bus stop with the same intensity with which he remembers sitting on opposite ends of a gym bench, indifferent to the distance. So many small details are now lining up perfectly, to the point that their gravity feels retroactive. How can a start be traced anywhere? Tetsuya was always Tetsuya, the same way Seijuurou was always Seijuurou, whether it became clearer later or it was known from the beginning.

Seijuurou shifts his arm under Tetsuya's head, as his other hand travels to the pulse in Tetsuya's neck. It’s with scorching thirst that he reaches it with his mouth and gently traces the apple of Tetsuya's throat with his lips. The need consumes him, burning madly and making him wish to trap Tetsuya, with his flushed skin and soft breaths, forever under him. Instead, Tetsuya rolls him over, pushing him down into the mattress, palms firmly on his heaving chest.

Nowadays, Seijuurou is barely grasping at control. And in this instance too, he can’t stop his hands from gripping tightly Tetsuya’s hips as Tetsuya rises above him, bittersweet and invincible, spilling chaos in Seijuurou’s head like broken moans spill from his parted lips. He can’t quite bring himself not to follow, just to kiss him again and hear him murmur his name. With powers beyond those of primeval gods, Tetsuya moves Seijuurou like a puppet, and Seijuurou can only pretend to have the strength to resist for so long.

In the end, he is still certain he can defeat any god—only, Tetsuya, and all that he is, is the exception to the rule.

So Seijuurou decides to welcome the loss, and surrenders.

**{ }**

**Author's Note:**

> Once again finding inspo for an akkr fic was only possible by listening on Absolute Repeat to “How Big How Blue How Beautiful (Chapter 2)" by Florence & The Machine. Thank you Florence, you bless my life as much as akkr.


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